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Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

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Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#101

Post by api »

thisiswrong wrote: post #81
api wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mos…

> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard t…

You're right that techies haven't experienced the great recession... or at least have avoided the worst of it. But the group I am referring to -- overprivileged over-educated trust fund kids engaging in faux-outrage as a form of entertainment -- are also isolated from the realities you mention... perhaps even more so, since techies have to actually work.

What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#102

Post by batbomb »

jessedhillon wrote: post #48

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…

People with enough of their parents money don't move to West Oakland. People who can't afford anything else and aren't afraid of getting robbed once a year do. Typically, yes, there's a bunch of kids from the "middle class", but most the ones I know are also "working poor" because they work in some sort of service industry.

Other parts of Oakland, sure. Not the core part of West Oakland though.

But you are also right, this wasn't West Oakland, or even lower class vs. Google. This was "activism class" vs Google. Which tends to describe hippies and burners.

Source: I've spent inordinate amounts of time near Willow Park.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#103

Post by ecspike »

kkowalczyk wrote: post #57
k-mcgrady wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By providing free transportation from SF Google employees are encouraged to live there. Why not live closer to work? It would probably result in a few more cars on the road but a lot of the employees would move closer to Google freeing up apartments for people who actually work at businesses in SF and HAVE to live there. NB: I have no stake in this, I like in Ireland.

1. Shortage of housing is even worse near Google campus than in SF 2. Angry mob or your opinions should not dictate where people choose to live. I could offer many suggestions as to how you should live YOUR life to better suit MY goal and ideas, but I don't because that would be stupid. You should choose a place to live that suits YOU the best and you should offer the same curtesy to others. The "occupy Google bus" m…

Even with the few new construction projects happening in MTV, it's not enough to house everyone. Apartments go incredibly fast.

Google employees are competing with all the other big companies in the South Bay(EBay/Apple/Facebook amongst others) plus the yearly influx of interns that takes a bunch of apartments off the market for 6 months at a time.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#104

Post by gohrt »

null_ptr wrote: post #88
yarou wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These kids never worked a day in their life, though. Their parents provided them with all the tools to succeed, but they still managed to fuck it up. They have no desire to improve themselves, they simply want to continue to leech off of whatever person will tolerate them the longest. Sickening.

Exactly. They want a free lunch off the hard work of others. Otherwise they would have been on their way to work this morning, not vandalizing a bus.

Please don't marginalized the un/underemployed. There is unemployment in the US, and not everyone can or should be an entrepeneur. (Heck, plenty of us wealthy tech workers would not succeed as entrepeneurs).

The noblesse oblige is to demonstrate leadership by creating opportunities for honest workers.

Edit for clarity: null_ptr implied that the alternative to this behavior is "going to work". Other possibilities are "try to find work", or "be stuck because there is no work avaialable".

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#105

Post by Crito »

gohrt wrote: post #96
jessedhillon wrote: post #48

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…

So... we need to organize a working class resistence against the... pretend working class resistance? Not even joking. If the imposter protestors make it acceptable for "civilized" folk to have a reactionary attitude against equality concerns, they will become a (perhaps unwitting) tool of oppression of the poor, who do have valid (if unvoiced) concerns.

It's a good point. These protesters, far from helping the 'locals', are giving them a worse reputation. Among it's other problems, Oakland is now "the city that smashes buses", even if the people who did it really have nothing to do with Oakland. The residents of Oakland have every right to be angry with these protesters.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#106

Post by ye »

thisiswrong wrote: post #81
api wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mos…

> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard t…

The irony of your comment only emphasizes how little you understand that NONE of it is techies' fault.

Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors?

Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do?

Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#107

Post by anigbrowl »

antiterra wrote: post #84
jessedhillon wrote: post #48

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…

Your disdain for people who attend Burning Man, have so-called 'useless degrees,' and are self-styled-artists does nothing but discredit you as a reasonable person. Plenty of people who fall into any combination or all of those groups are productive and capable, many of them in the technology/tech startup sectors (and don't have a problem with Google's buses.) EDIT: removed some of my own frothing

He's nopt expressing venom for people who/are those things, but for those who use such status to justify the sort of violent nihilism on display in this article. I know lots of Burning Man/weirdo artist types who work hard, care about their neighbors, and manage to express their political views without slinging bricks through windows or justifying intimidation by calling it 'direct action.'

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#108

Post by cbhl »

PeterisP wrote: post #83
cbhl wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see that happening unless the people who already own property in the city suddenly decide en masse that they're okay with repealing laws that prevent you from building tall apartment complexes to preserve the "look" of the city.

As far as I recall, the power to decide how things should be rests with all the people, not just the landlords. The renters outnumber them, and they have the ability, the rights and the reason to achieve cheaper rents by allowing to build apartment complexes.

True, but a renter is also disincentivized to vote for allowing people to build apartment complexes because of NIMBYism -- they don't want to be kicked out of their current living arrangements so that someone can spend 6 months building a new apartment complex in its place that might have lower rent.

The people who would unabashedly vote for the repeal such laws would likely be the people who don't live in SF yet but who want to live/move there.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#109

Post by zsiddique »

jessedhillon wrote: post #48

West Oakland is a traditionally black neighborhood that surrounds the Port of Oakland. It has been heavily gentrified, developed, and restructured over the past three decades. Now there is an upper class enclave that has been established near the West Oakland BART station, in Jack London, and in the city of Emeryville. Oh fuck you and your dreadlocks. There are only two photos on that page, so I don't definitively kn…

Local blogs are reporting the story: http://sfist.com/2013/12/20/angry_protesters_smash_google_bu... and it seems to back your theory. I dont think I see a single person of minority in the protest. Also the local sites are doing a better job at reporting the story then this bias site.

Re: Google Bus blocked, window smashed in West Oakland

#110

Post by gohrt »

aetherson wrote: post #71
defen wrote: post #41

As if the real problem with Oakland is that there are too many Google employees living there. Let's be honest - the only reason they do this is that Google employees sitting in a bus are a "soft" target. There is essentially zero chance of reprisal or consequence, at least if it's done as a one-off thing. You get to feel self-righteous for fighting "the man" without any risk. Let's say they win this quixotic crusade…

Yeah, I want to know what people think that alternative to gentrification is. Do they imagine that high income people will eventually just not live anywhere? Do they imagine that life would be better if all growth in the Bay Area were new construction sprawl out in the edges of the urban area where there's no displacement? Is it explicitly selfish, like, "go gentrify San Jose, those guys are assholes anyway"?

Not saying it's correct or fair or appropriate in this situation with these protestors, but one philosophy is an equality-of-results (or even equality-of-opportunity, depending on how you interpret "opportunity"), that says "high income people should not be wealthy, should not enjoy the comforts of upper-middle-class existence, while the masses are poor"
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